Why marketing agencies should offer localization as a service - and how to do it

Marketing agencies are tasked with creating and implementing successful marketing strategies that capture, retain, and grow a healthy customer base for their clients — and this is a big ask in the expansive digital age. 

While there are potentially far more opportunities to reach people and deliver the message thanks to the digital evolution, audiences have also evolved to become more savvy, cynical, and much more demanding of the products and services they choose. There is also keen competition among marketing agencies themselves - all of them going head-to-head with one another, eager to get their clients the best organic search ranks and conversion rates possible. 

In essence, marketing agencies are fishing a pool of intelligent fish that are wary of being caught. All while their competitors' boats float nearby too, sporting sophisticated hooks and bait. 

The globalization of marketing 

There is good news though – the pool is now very big! Statista says the global digital population is now just over 4 billion. That’s a lot of fish to put marketing collateral in front of! But did you know that only 25.9% of internet users have English as their mother tongue? 

For marketing agencies, this is a pertinent statistic. Many clients are looking to expand internationally, and having localized marketing collateral and a multilingual website is advantageous to reach that other 74% of potential customers. And not only will the content reach them, they’ll also be more likely to buy, as 72.4% of consumers confirm they are more likely to purchase a product that has information in their own language. Perhaps even more strikingly, 56.2% of consumers insist that the ability to obtain information in their own language is more important even than pricing. This is more than half of your consumer base stating that they are prepared to pay more if content is in their own language! 

These figures highlight just how important it is for localization to be at the forefront of an effective marketing strategy, and if your agency offers localization as part of its service, the benefit is potentially vast. You now have a golden USP when it comes to submitting your tender to prospective clients, and this could lead to you being able to discard that metaphorical fishing hook in favor of an entire net – such is the increase in the volume that you can aspire to catch. 

Offering localization as a service 

Many marketing agencies do accept the task of localizing content for their clients, but it’s often done on an ad hoc basis, with the entire process being outsourced. This means that the actual process of localization is a mystery. You send the files for translation, get them back, pay the fee, but you have no idea of the opportunities you’re missing out on because you're not in control of key translation technologies and processes. And the opportunities are there, we promise! 

We know, because RWS is increasingly being approached by marketing agencies explaining that clients have begun to ask them what translation software their translators use, and have gone on to ask about unfamiliar things such as ‘translation memories’. (Perhaps these are things they should familiarize themselves with… and even potentially capitalize on?) As a result, we’ve been helping increasing numbers of marketing agencies to leverage and control the translation process themselves. Because you don’t have be a translator yourself, or even bilingual, to leverage translation technologies for business advantage. 

Leverage and control the translation process 

If you own the resources that your translators use, you can better control and have full visibility of the translation process. You can monitor each translation project’s progress, enable your translators to collaborate in real time, and provide rapid feedback and support. You can also supply industry-specific translation memories and termbases for your translators to use, immediately speeding up and improving the quality of the translations you receive back. 

This is an equally strong selling point when submitting tenders to prospective clients. They may work in a specific vertical — pharmaceutical, automotive or legal for example — and you can leverage your ability to provide industry-specific translation memories and termbases to make you stand out from other agencies. 

If a company is looking for a marketing agency to manage their online presence, how tempting do you imagine a tender that includes a full localization service and that uses a glossary of the client’s industry-specific terminology will be? Some clients may already have their own list of approved terms which they want your translators to use — that’s fine too. You can upload their termbase straight into the system and share it with your translators. That hook is now considerably shinier, and the bait tastier than the rest by far. 

SEO is another area where control over the localization process lets you stand out. Now that you play a much more integral role in translation, you can liaise with your translators and discuss the potential of transcreation that includes popular or competitive keywords and phrases in each language. 

Digital marketing agencies often pride themselves on using cutting-edge technology in order to provide their clients with a comprehensive marketing solution. So why shouldn’t this promise of tech-assisted quality extend to your localization services too? 

The right solution for you 

Whatever the size of your marketing agency, and whatever the volume of your translation requests, RWS can provide the right solution to help you better serve your clients and their multilingual audiences. RWS's translation-assisting solutions are used worldwide by translation professionals — and the companies they're translating for — to translate, manage projects, collaborate, and to create and store translation resources. Whether you work with freelance translators or language service providers, get in touch with our friendly team to discuss a solution that will best serve you, your clients and your translators. 

We also offer free trials of all our translation productivity solutions, so why not try our software today and discover just how plentiful the waters really are?